What Do You Mean, Lonely?
by Ablissa
Summary: Alright, so he may be a little tipsy, but that is by choice. But Rose, Rose may have had one too many. A little too much wine. She likes wine. He likes Rose. He loves Rose. She doesn't know, and she loves wine. Pretty sure that she does. And now she is asking him if he ever felt lonely. What in Rassilon's name is she on about? / Lighthearted one-shot. Ten/Rose


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Doctor Who. Wouldn't mind if I did, but I really, really don't. It belongs to the BBC.

* * *

Jackie Tyler's birthday party.

If the Doctor ever bothered to make a list of things he _didn't_ want to do, or the events he _didn't_ wish to attend, that birthday party would be closely tied with eating pears. And he _hates_ pears. Absolutely despises them. Disgusting little things, evil, poisonous, horrid monsters in a fruity disguise, that's what they were! He wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole, not a chance.

Oh well. Rose's mother and all, he had to go and brave through a whole evening of meeting her relatives, saying that no, he is _not_ Rose's boyfriend, all the while wanting to say that yes, he _is _her boyfriend, or at the very least he _wants_ to be, and not just her _boyfriend_, but well.

He didn't. Of course not. Obviously not. _Absolutely_ not.

And as all the relatives in that stuffy old flat of theirs ended up completely drunk, him and Rose had a couple of drinks, too. Time Lords don't get drunk.

Weeell. He may be a little _tipsy_, but that is by choice. He could will his system to get rid of the traces of alcohol in no time if he wished to, but he doesn't mind the slight impression of being lightheaded. But Rose, Rose may have had one too many. A little too much wine. She likes wine. He likes Rose. He loves Rose. She doesn't know, and she loves wine. Pretty sure that she does. She's had a fair bit to drink.

Maybe he'd buy them some wine the next time they go shopping.

Anyway, they stumble into the TARDIS, Rose's arm is entwined with his, he helps her get in and she leans against the console, tossing her head back while laughing out loud about something he said at the party. It was apparently very daft, and Rose seems to enjoy it when he is being daft. Not that he ever is, but-

Blimey. She's _gorgeous_.

He laughs with her and turns to close the door. In that second, her expression changes. Drastically. From sheer amusement to curiosity.

"Y'know, I was just wonderin'," she slurs a little as she speaks. He finds it strangely adorable.

"Hmm? Yes? Wondering about what?"

"D'you ever get lonely?"

"Me, lonely? Why on Earth would I get lonely? I've got _you, _Rose Tyler! Nope, not lonely at all," he exclaims as he leans against one of the pillars, the opposite of her.

"No, I mean like- I mean, _lonely_. You know. _Lonely_."

She must be really drunk. He's only answered that question just now, just a moment ago; thirteen seconds ago, to be precise.

"I just told you, Rose. How could I ever get lonely with you around, eh? It's safe to say that you fill up my time rather well, isn't it?"

"No, you're not gettin' it," she sighs in frustration and follows it up with a soft chuckle, then abandons her post and tumbles towards him, stepping a little too close. And a tad too far. "I mean, lonely, in the, um, boyfriend and girlfriend sense. Y'know, what boyfriends and girlfriends do? Lonely like that, yeah? Do you?"

He feels baffled. What is she on about?

"I'm not sure I'm following," he admits while tugging on his ear and trying not to look down from her face, because one of the buttons on her black shirt has gone loose.

It's nice.

No. It's _awful_. Aaaaanyway.

"Doctor, think. What do boyfriends and girlfriends _do_?"

_How in Rassilon's name should I know? I'm not your boyfriend and I don't have a girlfriend. But we can try? If you like?_

"Errr, I don't know, go on dates?"

She laughs out loud as if he said the funniest joke in the universe and stumbles a little. He catches her by the elbows and straightens her but she doesn't move away from him afterwards, opting to remain close.

He shouldn't think much of it, she's obviously, weeell, slightly intoxicated. But he does. Oh, of course he does. He always finds himself over-thinking these things which is very undignified and very un-Time-Lord-y. But how can he not? When she hugs him and kisses his cheek and winks at him playfully, _Rassilon, it just isn't fair what she does to him sometimes. _

"Ta," she mumbles and then smiles up at him again, "What else do boyfriends and girlfriends do, Doctor?"

The Doctor searches his mind for something to respond with. What do they do on Earth? All that comes to mind are things he'd like to do with Rose. Plenty of things, actually. An ample amount of things! But that just won't do, will it?

Course. It won't do.

"Weeell, they... Err, they go out for dinner?"

"That's a date."

"Well, yes. Yes, I s'pose it might be."

She's still laughing at him and he has absolutely no clue as to why she might be laughing. Or well, a bit of a clue. The wine.

"That's still not it... Wait, I know! How about this: where do human babies come from, Doctor?"

What?

Wait, WHAT?

But that's-

_Rose, why are you doing this-_

What to do? What to say?

Rassilon, what to say?

How is this related to the whole _lonely_ thing, and the boyfriend and girlfriend thing? _How? Where is the logic, Rose? Rose, tell me! I don't get it!_

"From, err, well, um, intercou-"

OH.

It's as if all the gears in his head suddenly fell into their designated places.

"Oh. _Lonely_. Yes, I-I think... Err, I believe I-I get it, I think so, yes."

Boyfriends and girlfriends do _that_, too. In his limited knowledge. And sometimes it ends up with babies. In his even more limited knowledge.

But... WHAT?

"Yeah, exactly," she giggles and pokes him in the chest, "So, d'you, then?"

"Do I what?"

Rassilon, she is torturing him. He should go. Go to his bedroom and not think about any of this. Certainly not continue this bizarre conversation.

He stays put, doesn't move an inch.

"Get _lonely_, Doctor. You know."

Her lips are parted and her tongue pokes out between her teeth in that teasing manner of hers.

He should go.

_Now_.

He still doesn't.

"I, err, where is this coming from, Rose?"

"I was jus' wondering, 's all."

"Right, so you were thinking about, err, being _lonely_?"

"A bit." Now she's biting down on her lip. Why, Rassilon, _why_.

"And may I ask why you're asking _me_ this?"

Mental high-five on keeping his voice so casual. Good, very good.

"You told me yourself to tell you everythin', didn't you?"

Did he?

"No, I didn-" Wait. Yes, yes he did. Earlier that day, and a few times prior. "Oh. I did, didn't I?"

"Yup." she pops the 'p'.

"Right, yes, yes I did."

"So d'you, then?"

"Rose..."

"I reckon that you do, Doctor," she grins. Her cheeks are flushed.

She is torturing him. _Torturing_ him! Cruel human being, cruel, cruel Rose.

"I..." if he keeps tugging on his ear like that, he might tear it off.

Can't be helped. Necessary sacrifice. He likes his ear, he needs it, but well. Nothing can be done. He is absolutely perplexed.

He looks away from her and stares at the ceiling of his magnificent space ship for a few excruciating seconds, but soon enough comes back to gazing at her with a look of distress etched all over his face.

"What d'you do when you get _lonely_, then?"

WHAT

WHAT?

WHA-

"Wha- what?! Rose, I- just, what?!" He squeaks out in astonishment, his voice a few tones higher than he would wish it to be.

"Yeah?"

"Rose, I- I don't understand, um, do you want some, err, d'you want a hangover pill, or-" he stammers as he stops tugging on his ear and takes a few steps back.

"'M fine, ta," she giggles, "I'm not even _that_ drunk, y'know. I'm just, well, curious, I guess. You're a Time Lord, yeah? D'you ever, y'know, um-" she flushes at the end of the sentence, and the increased temperature of his own skin tells him that he does, too. How could he possibly not?

"No! _Absolutely not_!" Not good. His response may have been a _little bit_ too quick.

She'll notice. She always does.

"So is it like, that you, I dunno, _can't_?"

She's amused, embarrassed and curious, and he is _absolutely petrified_. Why, just, _why_ is she doing this to him, standing there all smiles and giggles and rosy cheeks, and as if that's not bad enough, she's asking him _things_. Terrible things! Awful! Horrible!

"No! I, err, I never said _that_, Rose, that's completely _not_ what I said, nope!"

"Right, so you _can_. So do you never just, y'know, feel like it?"

_Rose. Really, Rose? Really? Yes, I do. Like when you wear those jeans that fit you like a glove, or that- that black dress, oh, that damned dress, or- or when you smile, or- when you bite down on your lip just like that, or when you fall asleep with your head on my shoulder, or-_

YES, he does. Every now and again. Rarely. Once in a blue moon.

_ALL THE TIME, ROSE._

"Rose," he stammers, "I think- I really, err, think that you- you should go to... Bed, Rose."

She giggles and he secretly revels in the red shade of her cheeks, if only as some form of comfort, because he must be blushing furiously right about now, and it's not very manly to blush, and he wants to be manly, especially around Rose.

But how was one meant to stay composed when she acts like this?! She is an impossible minx! As well as his _friend_. Yes, friend. Definitely nothing else. Nooooooope.

"Right, so that means you do, yeah?" She teasingly assumes and he doesn't have it in him to protest, completely petrified by this turn of the conversation, "Or, I dunno, maybe Time Lords don't... Well, y'know?"

She has _never_ asked him such things before. Needless to say, he has _never_ mentioned anything like it before, either.

Or, weeell. They spoke of _dancing_. But that doesn't count.

"Rose, I think we've already established that I have, errr, _danced_ in the past, but I still believe that this subject is-it's entirely _inappropriate_, and-"

Her expression changes, her giggles die down and there is a certain dose of clarity in her eyes. For a moment, relief washes over him as he thinks that she may have sobered enough to put an end to the interrogation, but he soon hears her suddenly small voice asking him,

"Do you still?"

"Do I still what?" He asks in return, dumbfounded.

"_Dance_."

Rassilon. This was too much. Too much! What in Rassilon's name is she thinking?! It's just- It's completely _illogical_ and impossible and _why_ did she even think about it in the first place?

Now, there's a good question. She's tipsy, to be sure. But why _him_? They've never been, weeell, forward about things like that.

Could it be that she-

No. Of course not.

"Rose, when would I have the time? I'm-I'm with you, _constantly_." He says tiredly, running his fingers through his hair. Truth was, even if he had all the time in the world, he still wouldn't _dance_, because when it comes to dancing, you need a suitable partner.

Such as, weeell, Rose.

_Only_ Rose, for that matter. But that's just one of those things that he will never ever say out loud. Not a chance.

"Say you had the time, then?"

Why is she pressing the matter? What is on her mind? The Doctor struggles to restrain himself from taking her face in his hands and looking into that slightly intoxicated brain of hers to find some answers.

What's brought this on? And could they stop talking about it already? Talking about, err, being _lonely_ and _dancing_ was becoming increasingly difficult under her watchful stare, while she stands there mere inches away from him, wearing not much of anything. Shirt, jeans. All quite disposable things, if you ask him. Very handy-

Wait. STOP. Stop stop stop.

"Err... I... I still... _Wouldn't_?" he answers, sort of against his own wishes, because on the inside he is in a rush to add _Except with you! With you, I would! If you want. Maybe. For sure. Now. Anytime. Weeell... Yep, anytime._

He gulps, feeling as though her eyes might make their way straight down to his hearts, finding all those secrets he's been keeping from her. That he loves her, that he wants her, that she's got him wrapped around her finger. All that very undignified stuff.

"Not even if you fancied someone?"

RASSILON. DOES SHE KNOW?

No. She can't possibly.

He was hiding it very, very well. He still hasn't kissed her on the lips. He only slept in the same bed as her, weeell, around three times... Fine, four. Not more than five. _Anyway_. And out of those times he only embraced her once. Twice. Oh, and he never told her that he loves her, so she couldn't possibly know, right?

Right?

...Right?

His hearts are racing and he briefly wonders what he'd do if they would jump straight out of his chest, but he responds nevertheless. What else is there to do?

"Fancied someone?" he squeaks out in response. Fantastic. Brilliant. So very eloquent. Way to go, Doctor.

He rubs his eyes in a tired gesture and in that splinter of a second, Rose looks away. There is still a healthy amount of alcohol in her veins, no doubt, so he can't help but feel taken aback by the sudden change of mood. One minute she was all playful and insufferably curious, and now it's almost as if she is, weeell, sad? Yes, sad.

"Yeah, like today, at Mum's party, right? You were starin' at Trish. Y'know, Bev's cousin, yeah?"

The Doctor hasn't got the slightest clue as to who Trish might be, or Bev, or anyone at that blasted party aside from himself, Rose and her mother, so he shakes his head to say _no_.

"Well, you were! Proper staring at her all night, so I was thinkin' maybe you'd, you know, like to take her back here or somethin', and maybe I'm, I dunno, interrupting you? 'cos if you wanted-"

His eyes grow wide and round as saucers and he opens his mouth, but no sound comes out of his clenched throat. What on Earth is she on about? Who is Trish, and more importantly, how could his Rose ever imagine him to be eager to err, _seduce_ a woman he knew nothing of when both his hearts were, well, _engaged elsewhere_? Rose, just-

How is that even possible?

He thinks back to the party and tries to unveil some sort of a clue as to why Rose might ever come to such preposterous conclusions, and then, he remembers.

"Wait. Now, tell me, was that the woman sitting next to _you_ the whole time?"

Rose nods with a small pout, still not looking him in the eye, not until he bursts into laughter, at least.

Weeell, Rose. There you go. Mystery solved. Brilliant mind and all, mysteries tend to just solve themselves, you see.

"Rose, I was not looking at _her_," he smirks, for once being the one laughing. She loves to ridicule every single daft thing he does, but this, this really takes the cake. Staring at somebody other than his Rose! How could she even think so? He has no idea, none whatsoever. Which was, to be fair, quite common when it came to Rose.

For instance, he still had no idea about quite a few things, for example why she even started this conversation in the first place, and where it was headed. If anywhere.

"You weren't?" she says, looking him in the eyes once again, a hopeful tone in her voice. He fights off the urge to look away.

"No, I, weeell, I wasn't. Definitely not."

"So you don't fancy Trish, then?"

He can't help it. He lets out a guffaw because, let's face it, it's not like he ever did much of anything other than looking at _Rose_, and yet she was so perfectly oblivious to it.

"No, no, I don't," he responds as his laughter dies down. He sort of started embracing the nonsense by now. This whole evening made no sense whatsoever. Not everything has to make sense, right?

How she can look so _beautiful_ doesn't make much sense to him either, but that's something that he embraced many, many months ago.

"And if," she stammers, "Say, if you fancied a girl and wanted to, y'know, not be _lonely_, would I be-would I be, I dunno, interrupting you? Since I live here and all."

Rose. Really?

_Don't you see it? Blimey, Rose, _how_ do you not see it?_

It takes all of his self-control not to roll his eyes at her and bring his hands to his face in a resigned gesture. Weeell, no. It takes all of his self-control not to snog her senseless right there and then, but that's an everyday occurrence, so it's hardly worth a mention anymore.

He stops avoiding her gaze and in her eyes, he finds something new. Or maybe it's not all that new, maybe he just never noticed. Either way, she doesn't look the least bit dazed anymore, and he no longer wants to look away.

She has this, this _skill_ she has no idea about, where she just sort of takes his breath away and steals the beats of his hearts and ties a nervous knot in the pit of his stomach. And she, despite all that, thinks he could _fancy_ some random person.

Oh, _Rose_.

"I don't fancy anyone, Rose. Except..."

Well. That was a slip. That was _not_ intended.

Maybe she'll ignore it. Maybe she hasn't heard it.

Maybe-

"Except?"

Maybe _not_.

His hearts are fluttering inside his chest, threatening to break out and jump straight into her hands, right where they belong.

She tortured him, she tortured him _a lot_ today, yet each and every tease only makes him fall and fall and then fall deeper still.

Conscious thoughts and common sense elude him as he says,

"Except, weeell, _you_."

OH RASSILON WHAT DID I JUST SAY WHAT HAVE I DONE RASSILON ROSE PLEASE DON'T HATE ME

SAY SOMETHING

_PLEASE_.

SomethinganythingpleasejustspeaktomeRoseI'mbegging youpleasesayit

"Wait. You _fancy_ me?" She asks, seemingly taken aback by his unintentional confession.

His Adam's apple bobs in his throat as he rubs the back of his neck, still not breaking eye-contact. No way back, not anymore, not really.

Maybe she'll forget it by tomorrow. She did have a fair bit to drink.

"I suppose that's, err, one way of putting it, yes."

He doesn't _fancy_ her. He is completely in love with her.

But this would do for now.

"Seriously?"

"Err, well, yes. Yes, I quite do, although it's a rather inadequate term, but-"

Oh.

Her smile. It's absolutely _brilliant_.

She closes the distance between them in two steps.

She pulls him by the lapels.

Her lips crash onto his.

He doesn't know what to do. For two seconds, he doesn't.

But then, it clicks. It all clicks. And he knows.

She tastes of strawberries, vanilla and a hint of time from her reign as Bad Wolf. Oh, and a little bit of wine.

He wraps his arms around her waist as his senses go into overload from tasting her, touching her, smelling her, snogging her, and-

A few minutes later, they're both panting for air, and that mischievous glint finds its way back into her eyes.

"So you _do_ get lonely sometimes, yeah?"

He doesn't think. He feels.

He smirks at her, slightly dazed from the best snog in the entire history of the known universe, and says, "I s'pose I do. Quite... Quite often, but-"

Her tongue emerges from between her teeth as she grins at him. They are so very close.

Should be closer.

"Me too," comes the casual statement.

"Really?"

"Really."

"And d'you mean that you, err, get lonely and want to, weeell, with-with _me_?"

Her smile grows wider. He can't wait, he pulls her in for yet another snog before trying to reaffirm that she _did_ mean _this_. He trips over words and stammers and he cannot form a coherent sentence, so she interrupts him.

"Shut up and kiss me," she breathes against his lips.

For once, the Doctor doesn't argue.

Clothes come off as they stumble towards the bedroom - any bedroom, his, hers, doesn't matter, they don't know - and only as he looms over her, quite breathless despite his superior respiratory bypass system, does he say,

"You should know that I don't just _fancy_ you, Rose Tyler."

"No?"

He shakes his head and leans in to whisper right into her ear. Three words. Just three.

And then, when he hears her say the very same thing, he makes use of his last conscious thought to appreciate all the cheap wine and loneliness they had ever taken part in.

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**A/N: **Just a silly one-shot that came to my mind and was itching to be written in between the chapters of my current story. Please let me know if you liked it, and thank you for reading! ^_^


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